I have just finished an update of my Legislative Assembly candidate list and I thought I’d pop it up here for everyone to take a look. Over the next day or two I’ll make sure every seat guide has its candidate list updated too.
So far I have 236 candidates on my list. Labor has announced most of their candidates, with the Coalition and the Greens trailing a bit further behind. We don’t have that many candidates announced for minor parties, but a substantial field of reasonably strong independents.
Labor has announced 82 candidates. The Liberal Party has announced 42 and the Nationals 20, for a total of 62. At the moment there is just one Liberal-National contest in Port Macquarie where sitting MP Leslie Williams defected from Nationals to Liberal during the last term and is contesting the seat now as a Liberal.
The Greens have announced 39 candidates, with One Nation announcing twelve. There are also three Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidates, two Animal Justice candidates and two Socialist Alliance candidates. The Greens will certainly run in all 93 seats and I assume the overall minor party candidate list will grow, but it’s interesting that we aren’t seeing the huge slates of candidates we saw at the Victorian state election. I suspect the different upper house electoral system partly explains that difference.
Overall 98 out of 236 candidates are women – that’s 41.5%. That compares to 34.2% in 2019, although I’m not comparing like with like as last minute candidate nominations tend to include more men.
47.6% of Labor candidates are women, as are 38.5% of Greens. 38.1% of Liberals and 35% of Nationals are women.
The list of independents is notable. 34 have already announced, compared to 52 in 2019 (and a lot of independents often announce at the last minute). There are numerous others who have been registered at the Election Funding Authority website as potential candidates for electoral finance purposes but I don’t include them until I have other evidence that they are actually running. Of those 34, 16 are women. Again we are seeing a surge of impressive women candidates running proper campaigns with professional websites, as we did in the federal and Victorian elections. Of course, the Victorian election shows that doesn’t necessarily translate into victories.
Of course, most candidates have little to no chance of winning, so these numbers might mask trends that influence who actually wins. I’m going to return to this topic by analysing just those with a serious chance of winning – in many seats we know the gender of the winner, either because it’s a safe seat or because every winnable candidate is of the same gender. I know off the top of my head of at least four seats in Sydney where the sitting MP is male but the new MP will definitely be female – both potential successors to retiring MPs in Balmain, Drummoyne and Parramatta are women, as is the only serious contender in Liverpool. But I’ll do the proper analysis and come back to this.
It’s interesting that there are no candidates announced in Cabramatta or Fairfield, where the sitting Labor MPs are retiring. There has been a lot of chatter about the Labor preselections in these seats, which overlap with the federal seat of Fowler which Labor lost in May. There has also been speculation that candidates could emerge from the Carbone-Le machine that controls Fairfield council and the federal seat, but I’ve seen no signs of movement.
I should also note that there is just one sitting lower house MP who has neither announced their retirement or clearly jumped into re-election, and that is Gareth Ward, the ex-Liberal independent in Kiama. The Wikipedia list of candidates has him listed as running as an independent but I can’t verify that.
I’ve added one other column to the dataset: whether the candidate is a sitting councillor. I have noticed quite a few councillors running for very winnable seats. I haven’t collected the data for previous elections, but I know there was a surge of councillors winning seats in 2011. They were mostly Liberals, riding a wave as Labor was swept out. It wouldn’t be surprising if we saw the same in reverse if Labor came to power in 2023, although it won’t be of the same scale as the 2011 landslide.
So far I’ve identified 29 councillors. Seats with councillors running with a serious chance of winning include Balmain, Bega, Clarence, Drummoyne, Leppington, Lismore, Liverpool, Murray, Orange, Parramatta, Penrith, Pittwater, Port Macquarie, Ryde, Wakehurst and Winston Hills. Balmain, Drummoyne and Leppington are all seats where both contenders are councillors.
That’s it for today – but I’ll be back next week with more analysis.
The Labor candidate in the Hawkesbury is a local councilor if you want to update your spreadsheet.
Thanks, I’ve updated my original file, will do the public one later. Greens candidate for Wollongong is also a councillor. Neither of them have much chance of winning.
I’m and many others are very disappointed in the Liberal party for not preparing or selecting a candidate for Strathfield yet. The LNP’s attitude towards the seat of Strathfield as already lost is a betrayal for those who voted for them In the recent Bi election.
Does anyone know if Leslie Williams has the proper backing of the Liberal party? I get the feeling they might throw her under the bus to make the Nationals happy.
Elsewhere, it doesn’t seem like a Liberal will run in Wagga Wagga this election as well. I assume they’re either waiting for the Independent to go or for the Daryl Maguire situation to fade from memory. But the Nationals have long complained about the liberal presence here (Wagga being within the federal Nat seat of Riverina) so maybe they’ve given it up altogether.
Leslie Williams is the endorsed Liberal Party candidate for Port Macquarie.
Dom P. has recently visited Port Macquarie to campaign for her.
National (nee Country, nee Progressive) Party have not held the state seat of Wagga Wagga since 1941.
Ben,
Some updates for you:
Clarence: Greg Clancy (Greens) and Debrah Novak (ind) are both councillors on Clarence Valley Council.
Richie Williamson (Nats) is not a current councillor. He did not recontest in 2021.
Coffs Harbour: Tony Judge (Labor) and Sally Townley (Ind) are both Councillors on Coffs Harbour Council.
Dubbo: Josh Black (Labor) is a councillor of Dubbo Regional Council.
North SHore: Godfrey Santer (Labor) is a councillor on North Sydney Council.
Oatley: Ash A. (Labor) is councillor on Georges River Council (she was elected on a countback since last council election).
South Coast: Liza Butler (Labor) is a councillor on Shoalhaven Council
Tamworth: Kate McGrath (Labor) is a councillor on Gunnedah Council
Wollondilly: Judy Hannan (ind) is a councillor on Wollondilly Council
Hope this helps
Thanks for all those! I’m up to 39 councillors now.
Leslie Williams has had in the past 10 days;
Premier
Health minister
Roads and woman’s safety minister
Cities minister
Visit Port. I don’t think it could be suggested that the Liberal party is anything but invested in her winning.
Moderate – If leslie williams is popular and campaigning with high profile figures, then why is the national party running a candidate here?
Wouldn’t it be better if the nationals just abstain from the contest like they do in other rural liberal seats?
Unless the nationals candidate is low profile and is only running a token campaign
I don’t think the Nats want to concede that they can just lose their seats to the Libs if the member defects, so of course they put up a fight. It’s different to other rural Liberal seats. But I think Williams will probably win, and these provincial city seats are good prospects for the Libs.
Fair point ben, leslie Williams is considered a defector to some degree because she was elected as a national party member and switched parties mid-term.
If leslie Williams does win re-election as a Liberal member, then the nationals will probably be less keen on challenging her next time. Unless she subsequently retires, then the nationals would definitely want to compete and try to recapture the seat.
The Liberals came within 80 votes of beating the Nats in Port Macquarie based Lyne at the 1993 Federal election. After the Nats put huge effort to beat the Libs in Southern Highlands at a 1996 by-election and lost Clarence to Labor the same day, the Libs were determined to contest 1996 Port Macquarie by-election later that year and were only stopped by Peter Collins exerting his leadership authority. The resignation of Rob Oskschott from the Nats and the departure of Williams is related to tensions in local Nat branches. As late as the 2008 Lyne by-election there were Libs opposing the Nats. Stopping the Liberals running in Lyne and Port Macquarie has been going on for years.
My question is ..is there a credible independent running in
Port Macquarie.. because this opens up the contest.. and makes a liberal or national win uncertain
Gareth ward is running
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/former-liberal-minister-gareth-ward-to-contest-kiama-as-independent-20230203-p5chtl.html
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